Small Scale Composting Kitchen Waste – Basics to Know Before Starting!

If you want to get started with small scale composting kitchen waste, it is thankfully much easier than most people think.

However, don’t think that means you can just waltz through it without really knowing what to do, and expect to get good results! In fact, especially with kitchen compost, doing it this way, with no real knowledge of what to do, then you’re more likely to end up with a smelly, stinky mess!

And why is that more likely with kitchen scraps?

Because most of them are going to be fruit and vegetable scraps, cooking leftovers and things like this. The problem is, most of these are “green” compost scraps, and without enough “brown” things, the high nitrogen content in greens starts smelling pretty bad, and attracts flies and horrible insects like that…

Meaning that if you do wanna start composting kitchen waste, and let’s be honest, of course you do!, then you’ll also need to add a few “browns” to the mix as well. I’m talking about leaves, grass cuttings and even small twigs.

Not especially difficult to find, and even a small yard will provide enough of these browns to keep your compost mix from becoming a horrible insect and rodent fest…

Which is also why a lot of people like to start composting in fall, when there’s lots of leaves lying around…of course, that only happens for 25% of the year, but the rest of the year is just as good a time to start.

You just won’t have such an abundance of leaves to take. Besides, composting isn’t something that’s restricted to just one part of the year, anyone can do it all year, every day!

But it’s not just about getting enough greens and browns together, and sticking them in a compost bin.

You also wanna make sure you put the bin in the right place too!

You’ll want to look for these things in an idea “composting area”:

Out of direct sunlight.
Somewhere you can add water to it easily.
Somewhere its easy to bring new compost ingredients to.
If you don’t want the composting bin in sight either, obviously you’ll need to keep it somewhere out of the way too.

However, you can get some rather nice looking compost bins. And besides, “out of sight, out of mind” may not be exactly ideal, since you’ll need to remember to keep turning the compost over, to make sure the stuff at the bottom gets good air circulation.

Without a good supply of air…well, your compost attempts won’t turn out so good…

But this is only the beginning!